The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-01-22
OLD TESTAMENT VIEW OF GOD.
By MARK HoLHox
(Chicago)


have read Rev. Edgar Ieavitt's ar
ticle in THE UNIvERsALTSx of Jan. 1,
1887, on Hardening Phara@h's Heart. I"
He tells US how one far14us London
preacher attempts to expikin it SO as
to justify the ways Of God % men, and
las our brother thinks) fails to do it.
Many besides him would think that
such lines of reasoning as hey pursue
must necessarily reach to me conclu-
sious. In the last part d1the article
the writer gives his way ofsetting God
out Of the difficulty. N6& there are
few that understand Hell w, and if
there is an English way ''excusing
the Lordo in this matter as well as
many others which are RED ded in the
Bibles ancient record, it nby help un-
learned Christians who haze to depend
upon the Bible Of King J4mes or the
new Revision.
Perhaps am foolhardy q giving an
opinion on the subject, but f this am
sure, the God and Father<M our Lord
Jesus Christ neither asks 4r requires
any apology of man for His bays, which
are eternally and invariably 'holy,
just and true.' l sometimes feel out
of patience with theologid|h hpologetes.
1t seems as if they saw pme stains
which ought to be washed put Of the
character of God. If they Xould exer-
else little good common sense, and
spend time in examining Neir creeds
as they do in apologizing fM Gods ac-
tions, they would be aston he'd to find
the stains are in their creefs, and that
they have embodied in then their own
conceptions of God, reducing Him in
moral proceeding toward lis children
as far below the level Of ndbrthly faith
er toward his offspring, q cruelty is
below mercy.
The Bible is profoundly rue as lay
ing open to us the evolution of moral,
religious and spiritual ides& Detach-
ing portions having no Hgard to it's
unity and progressive chara1 Ter, we find
ourselves foundering in a$aea of diff
culties.
Groveling indeed were &he concep-
tions of the old Hebrews q 10 their Je-
hovah. They were very n erial. We
know from the record, the were vir-
tuous or vicious without tl Incentives
Of heaven Or fears Of hell Ghey looked
TO Him for worldly good. A patriarch
says, "If God will be with me in the
way 1 go, and will give me bread to eat
and raiment to put on so / come again
to my fathers house, then shall Jeho-
yah be my God," (Gen. xviii, 20.) To
exact of Abraham a line Of action and
a character corresponding with deep
Christian cult would not be just. But
we can see justice in counting to him
for righteousness what he would have
been under a Christian cult. And
may we not exact from the Jehovah of
the old Hebrew, qualities far higher
than they attributed to him. Does He
not appear in the early Old Testament
records as their special God, the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?
God fights their battles, makes their
cattle more prolific or cuts them off
with murrain, ,and commands them to do
many things shocking to the nineteenth
century's humanity. 1t is very evident
that Hebrew early humanity had no
high moral conceptions of their Jeho-
yah; and the hardening of Pharaoh's
heart, and the destruction of himself
and army in the Red Sea, is what they
would naturally expect of God. 1t was
in keeping with the Jehovah of the law
to curse. (See Deuteronomy 1t was
in keeping with his worshipers that
an enemy's prayer should be sin; that
his children should be fatherless and
continual yagabonds, and his wife a
widow" Ps. elk.
But all this was only the moral pho
tograph of themselves and their age,
indicating what they thought Jehovah
did, would do, or ought to do. 1t was
the mistake they made. What monster
st. Augustine makes of a Christians
God Writing to Dulcitius, Roman
magistrate, and reasoning from the
premises that God would burn heretics
forever in the fires of Gehenna, he says
to that civil officer, lit is better to burn
them up in their own fires than that
they should live to poison others with
their heresy." Who SO looks for a true
character of God in old Hebrew Script
ures, can certainly only get glimpse
of him here and there, prophetic of
something clearer by and by. Christ
tells us he came into the world to re-
veal the Father. We heer him, say ''It
was said by them of old time, thou
shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine
enemy" Why should Paul write that
as long as Moses is read, "the vail is
upon your hearts," z Cor. iii, 81 Why
should he talk on Mars hill about times
of ignorance that God winked at2 Is
not all this, and much more, that we
may exercise some common sense, and
not rack our brains in the attempt to
construct out of the debris Of Patri-